If you didn"t know that Lewis Carroll was a pseudonym, you might wonder if this Carroll ( A Child Across the Sky ) might be a relative. He, too, uses fanciful jests to point up common absurdities and makes fantasy seem altogether tangible. Here his narrator is a curmudgeonly genius, the aphorizing architect Harry Radcliffe, who, with the aid of a maverick therapist, has recently recovered from a mental collapse and is ready to reexamine his constructs of reality. He"s also rebounding from an amicable divorce and conducts affairs with two fabulous females. Various developments--including an earthquake from which Radcliffe"s party is miraculously rescued by a Middle Eastern sultan and the therapist"s dog--oblige Radcliffe to accept the sultan"s commission to build a vast dog museum. When war breaks out in the sultan"s realm and he is killed, his son--a romantic rival for one of Radcliffe"s lady loves--presses Radcliffe to build the museum on his property in Austria and promises to pay...